Introduction
The senses

What actually is locked within is the actor's flow, the actor's inherent right to act well. This flow depends on two specific functions of the body: the senses and the imagination.

We are completely dependent on our senses. They are the first antennae that detect the outside world. We see, touch, taste, smell and hear that we are not alone. As tortures go, sense deprivation is theatrically weak but surprisingly efficient. When the stakes rise our senses become more acute. The interface between our bodies and the outside world becomes more sensitive and intense. We recall exactly the place where we heard astonishing news — no wonder that so many remember not only when but where they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The world shifts and sharpens as the stakes rise, and each of the senses wakes — the smell of the whiskey at the funeral, or the taste of coffee in another bed. We will explore this further on page 139, with the mugger's knife.

Three remarks may help here: first, it is dangerous to take our senses for granted. Occasional meditations on blindness and other sensory loss are nearly as life-affirming as the regular contemplation of death. Secondly, the actor's senses will never absorb as much in performance as the character absorbs in the real situation. In other words the actor will never see the spectral dagger as acutely as Macbcth himself. Finally, this graceful acceptance of inevitable failure is an exhilarating release for the artist. That we will never get there is an excellent starting point; perfectionism is a vanity.

The actor needs to accept this dependence on the senses' limitations for the imagination to run free. The actor relies utterly on the senses; they are the first stage in our communication with the world. The imagination is the second.